National Counties event encourages county funding

WASHINGTON D.C. — Sandoval County commissioners and administrators attended the National Association of Counties legislative conference in the nation’s capital in February. But why were they there?

The reason is multifaceted, according to county manager Wayne Johnson in a recent interview.

First and foremost, Johnson explained, the conference helps with policy creation on the national level.

“NACo. will have policies, and we have the opportunity to create policies if we wish to and have support garnered for other counties from around the country and put them before them for a vote, and NACo., if it's approved, may take that on as a policy position for Congress,” he said.

Outside of the conference, the county’s paid lobbyist sets up what Johnson called “hill visits” where they meet with congressional staff and representatives whenever they are availble.

“Some of them are not (available), but for the most part, we get to to meet with them and explain where we are, give an update on what's going on in Sandoval County and also help find ways to get their support for our various capital projects,” he said.

Some projects Johnson mentioned include the ongoing courthouse expansion, which he said he couldn’t find any qualifying  grants or funds. Another key focus of the county’s was the Behavioral Health Center, which did get funding secured from Democratic U.S. Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury.

“You want to be able to get a project that the feds can help with and match it up with a dollar amount that makes it work for them,” he said.

He explained the Behavioral Health Center is a tough project to fund because the county is still piecing together what is needed for the project.

“Quite frankly, behavioral health is a tough one, and it's a definite need in just about every community on some level,” he said.

The county also has to coordinate with surrounding municipalities and agencies that might have similar goals on behavioral health, according to Johnson. He said they don’t want to overlap services.

The goal is to match funding with the program need within a county, Johnson said. But need varies from county to county, he said.

“I always say if you’ve been to one county, you’ve been to that county because no two are the same,” Johnson said.

While in D.C., the county also forms and maintains relationships with other counties and agencies.

“Obviously, you're getting different ideas from different counties, both sized larger and smaller than you are, and the networking that you are exposed to is really invaluable for us,” Johnson said.

He added that there’s an agency expo with representatives from every federal agency present.

“You know, NASA has great swag. But everybody from NASA to environment is there and so, you have the opportunity to talk to them on a one-on-one basis about issues that you may be having, or you may see coming your way,” he said.

There were several common topics brought up through the course of the event, according to Johnson, but the two that came up the most were artificial intelligence and data centers.

“I typically go every year. Last year, data centers were not on the radar. This year? Boom, they're all over the place. The topic has really become a big one there. How do you manage them? How do you govern them? What incentives should you be giving to AI, or shouldn't you be giving? These are all topics that that come up, and that we've discussed in those in those meetings,” he said.

Though AI and data centers are a national concern, Johnson indicated that the county doesn’t have any real opinion on those  matters because there are no projects like that in the county.

“At this point, we're kind of monitoring what's going on. We don't have a project to say, you know, like, project Jupiter down at Doña Ana. We don't have anything like that on the radar, so we haven't developed a specific position as a county on whether data centers are good,” he said. “We're treating it like any other industry at this point.”

In his experience, he explained, sites like data centers don’t create a lot of jobs from the industry itself.

“One of the things that's always been the case with regard to data centers as far as economic development goes, most of the job creation is done during the construction phase and not during the operational phase. That's the case with Facebook.  So, to say that that's a great economic development project, it hasn't been my experience that is the case,” he said.

He said the same of AI, which he explained the county may want to support on “some level” but doesn’t see as a traditional economic development project.

Johnson complimented the delegation in Washington, D.C.

“We’ve been working with them for a long time now. The newer ones, I guess, really are Stansbury and (Democratic U.S. Congresswoman Teresa) Ledger Fernandez. Their staffs have been great to work with,” he said.

Johnson added that both U.S. Sens. Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján spent the entire time with the county at their offices.

“We were there half hour, 45 minutes, and we had really good discussions. It was a nice opportunity to for our commissioners to meet the congressional delegation. We've got a couple new commissioners had the opportunity to to meet them. That's it's a good thing to get the elected officials in the same room,” Johnson said.

One of the topics the delegation and commissioners covered was the Buffalo Tract in the Placitas area.

“U.S. Sens. Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján have introduced the Buffalo Tract Protection Act which would withdraw four parcels of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands in southern Sandoval County, including the Buffalo Tract and the Crest of Montezuma, from any mineral development, including gravel mining. The legislation previously passed by a voice vote in a key legislative business meeting in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in December of 2019,” a Las Placitas Association article reads.

Johnson added that it requires a great deal of strategy and timing to get the Buffalo Tract figured out.

The community is impacted by the county’s trips to “the hill” as well.

“Hopefully it’s positive. This is part of our job, to work with the other elected officials both locally in Santa Fe and in Washington D.C. To try and bring back projects and funding and make policy changes that benefit our citizens. That's who we work for,” Johnson said.

He added that trips to D.C. put a face and a story to the policy.

The future for Sandoval County, according to Johnson, is more funding being sought after.

“We're always looking for money for the expansion of dispatch. We've always said that was kind of phase one going into it. So we're looking at those funds. We're looking for El Zocalo (a historic plaza in Bernalillo),” he said.

He said El Zocalo is a space that could benefit the community and the county.

The Cuba fire station and county fair grounds are also on the horizon, he explained. There are also talks of a new fire station in the unincorporated area of Rio Rancho.

Another big priority is road access in the Santa Fe National Forest, which partly lies in Sandoval.

During the county commission meeting March 11, the commissioners shared that they brought home a gavel from D.C.

For more information, visit sandovalcountynm.gov.